GSV Ventures expects to make follow-on investments in India portfolio this year: Managing Partner Deborah Quazzo

GSV Ventures Managing Partner Deborah Quazzo.

Edtech venture capital firm GSV Ventures expects to make some follow-on investments in its Indian portfolio companies this year, Deborah Quazzo, the firm’s Managing Partner, told Moneycontrol.

“The timing of our India investments was such that most of them (portfolio companies) raised adequate capital to not need to follow on or they were smaller companies that didn't have product market fit and so went out of business, just a couple of those. We haven’t made follow-ons but you should expect to see us have some follow-ons this year,” said Quazzo, in an interaction with Moneycontrol ahead of the second edition of the ASU+GSV & Emeritus Summit in Gurugram.

This comes at a time when the edtech sector is facing a double whammy of plummeting investments and the fall of the most valued edtech company, Byju’s. During such tough times, many Indian startups have fallen back on their existing investors to help them sail through this period.

“We have done that as well for our portfolio companies in the US. We might not have needed to do so till now with our Indian edtech portfolio,” Quazzo added.

US-based GSV invests exclusively in edtech startups around the world and manages about $800 million in assets. GSV Ventures has invested in over 11 edtech companies in India and nearly 86 companies worldwide.

Notable unicorns in its portfolio include edtech companies PhysicsWallah and LEAD, as well as the blue-collar job portal Apna.co. The portfolio also includes companies like Frontrow, which ceased operations last year due to a failure to achieve product-market fit.

Quazzo, who began her career as a banker at Merrill Lynch in 1987, has been a part of GSV Ventures for over a decade. She has also served on the boards of numerous Indian education companies, such as Simplilearn, Aakash Educational Services, BrightChamps, and Classplus.

She further expressed optimism in the Indian edtech landscape and said that the fundamentals of the Indian education and skills market are intact.

“Markets, wiggle and waggle, as they say, but the long tail for India is unabated and continues very fully,” Quazzo said.